A total of 15 people were sentenced to prison in central China's Hunan Province on Thursday for their roles in a deadly building collapse that claimed 54 lives in 2022.

The defendants received jail terms ranging from 12 years to two years and nine months, according to the courts of Wangcheng District and Ningxiang City.

The defendants included the owner of the illegally built and extended building and the officials who committed dereliction of duty, reports news agency.

The incident occurred in the provincial capital of Changsha on April 29, 2022, leaving 54 dead and nine wounded.

At least three people died and four others were injured after a bridge collapsed in the southern US state of Mississippi, authorities said, calling it "a worksite accident."

The incident occurred on Wednesday afternoon.

The deaths and injuries were confirmed by Simpson County Sheriff Paul Mullins, reports ,

Violent protests by students continue to spread across Pakistan's Punjab province after reports of alleged rape of a private college student in Lahore went viral on social media.

On Thursday, angry students of different colleges in Rawalpindi took to the streets and blocked main highways, protesting against the alleged rape of a Lahore college student by a security guard. Police authorities have arrested at least 150 violent protesters while using tear gas to disperse the students.

Major protests and rallies are being taken out in various parts of the Punjab province for the past four days with students and their representational bodies slamming the provincial government of Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif for trying to cover up the whole incident and claiming that it never occurred.

As per the latest reports, at least one student protestor has lost his life while over 28 have been reportedly injured due to clashes with the security guards of the college and police.

A group of South Korean scientists has discovered electronic crystallites in a solid material for the first time in the world, which is expected to help make progress in studies on high-temperature superconductivity, the science ministry said on Thursday.

A research team, led by Professor Kim Keun-su at Yonsei University in Seoul, posted a paper, titled "Electronic rotons and Wigner crystallites in a two-dimensional dipole liquid," in Nature, a prominent science journal, according to the Ministry of Science and ICT.

This marks the world's first experimental discovery of the structure, theorised by Hungarian American physicist Eugene Wigner in 1934, news agency reported.

Wigner crystal refers to a solid or crystalline formation of a gas of electrons enabled by strong repulsion between electrons at low electron density. Normally, a crystal formation is understood as an attraction between atoms.

In a massive embarrassment for Canada, the country's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday admitted that Ottawa only provided some intelligence inputs and no hard proof before accusing India of killing Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Testifying before the country's foreign interference inquiry, Trudeau admitted that New Delhi had demanded the sharing of proof -- something that India has been insisting on till date -- after the allegations.

"At that point, it was primarily intelligence, not hard evidentiary proof," the Canadian PM admitted in an on-camera hearing before the committee.

As he harped on having "credible evidence" on India's involvement, Trudeau also spoke on the alleged role of gangster Lawrence Bishnoi in Nijjar's killing.

Sea traffic in the Bosphorus Strait, one of the busiest waterways in the world, was suspended due to heavy fog, authorities said.

According to a statement from Turkey's Transport and Infrastructure Ministry on Wednesday, ship traffic in the strait has been suspended in both directions due to "limited visibility" caused by heavy thick fog, news agency reported.

In another statement from City Lines, which operates ferries commuting across the strait between the Asian and European sides, it was announced that many services have been suspended due to "adverse weather conditions".

Visibility has deteriorated significantly in some places, especially on bridges across the Bosphorus, leading to traffic congestion and an increased risk of accidents.

The National Commissioner of the South African Police Service (SAPS) Fannie Masemola has said that four suspects responsible for a mass shooting in the Eastern Cape province late last month have been arrested.

The mass shooting, which left 18 people dead, happened on September 28 in the town of Lusikisiki, news agency reported on Wednesday.

On Tuesday night, the SAPS published the pictures and names of the suspects, alleging that they were linked to the incident.

In a statement issued by the police on Wednesday morning, Masemola said that in less than 24 hours from the time the SAPS issued an alert on the wanted suspects, communities rallied together and informed the police of their whereabouts.

At least 13 Palestinians were killed, including children and women, and dozens of others wounded in an Israeli raid that targeted a house in Gaza City, the Civil Defence Authority in Gaza said.

"Israeli warplanes targeted a house belonging to the Al-Qarm family in the Al-Nasr neighbourhood in Gaza City," the Civil Defence said on Wednesday in a brief statement.

Meanwhile, Director-General of the health authorities in Gaza, Munir Al-Barsh, said that 350 dead and hundreds of injured people arrived at hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip during the 11 days of the ongoing Israeli operation, news agency reported.

The death toll from Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon since the beginning of the Hezbollah-Israeli conflict on October 8, 2023, reached 2,367, while injuries went up to 11,088, the Lebanese Health Ministry said.

Meanwhile, the death toll from Israeli airstrikes on different areas in Lebanon on October 15 reached 17 while injuries stood at 182, the Ministry added on Thursday.

It noted that three people were killed and 92 others wounded in the south, while nine were killed and 49 injured in the Nabatieh governorate, news agency reported.

It added that five people were killed and 26 injured in the Bekaa Valley. In the Baalbek Hermel governorate, 15 people were wounded.

The National Commissioner of the South African Police Service (SAPS) Fannie Masemola said Wednesday that four suspects responsible for a mass shooting in the Eastern Cape Province late last month have been arrested.

The mass shooting, which left 18 people dead, happened on September 28 in the town of Lusikisiki. On Tuesday night, the SAPS published the pictures and names of the suspects, alleging that they were linked to the incident.

In a statement issued by the police Wednesday morning, Masemola said that in less than 24 hours from the time the SAPS issued an alert on the wanted suspects, communities rallied together and informed the police of their whereabouts, news agency reported.